revivalproject | That Meddling Meddler

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That Meddling Meddler

WHO: Echo et AL
WHERE: Various about The Hero City
WHAT: Normal moments, action moments, normal action? Whatever happens in between the bigger events.
WHEN: May?
WARNINGS: N/A?

-----

Every morning, Echo woke up. Every morning, he answered his door, leaning against the frame before looking down.

"We need to stop doing this."

The orange tabby meowed, pressing against the man's legs to slink past him and the threshold. And after watching the cat take over his apartment yet again, he sighed, bending forward to grab the newspaper that came with it.

* * *

Place An Order

Because even in a city full of Superheroes, folks still needed saving...

...From exaggerated hunger pangs.

Ramen, hero sandwiches, pad thai – whatever it was, Echo was out there, picking up orders and delivering them to the awaiting customers in need of feeding.

"GrubDash!"

On The Way

There were plenty of times he was there outside of making an online food delivery.

Not every single event could be taken care of within twenty-four hours by one person, of course. That would be ridiculous. Echo chose what was realistically doable with the constraints he had to work with, which included being mostly normal as opposed to being someone with actual superpowers.

Anything within the lower to middle tier, really, scripted and unscripted. The latter at least didn't involve reading tomorrow's newspaper articles ahead of schedule.

He knew some things weren't fixable. But if he could change an outcome for the better, he took the risk.

Wildcard

[Other ideas/suggestions/scenarios/what have you go hereeeee]

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That was several questions that Tony wasn't sure if he was meant to answer, or let the deliveryman work out socratically on his own. He had figured out Tony's name, after all, so to that one he allowed, "Yes, and you're..." because he felt at a disadvantage in this situation not having a name himself, and drew out his phone to check the GrubDash app for a name. He produced, "Daphne," which did not seem correct as he stared at his deliveryman, but he had definitely heard stranger names from stranger beings. "Hey!" he continued suddenly, with the app open in his hand and glaringly bright in the darkened room as the reminder, "Did you bring that bottle?" There weren't a lot of places delivering alcohol at this hour in the morning, but champagne seemed appropriate enough for brunch to find someone willing to indulge Tony. Donuts, of course, were the traditionally accepted pairing for an outrageously expensive champagne. Probably, somewhere.

Even in the dim lighting, Echo's gaze fell flat while squinting. "It's Echo," he frowned, only to lose the moment of correction when Tony immediately switched gears.

Champagne and donuts? Yeah, it was a strange order, but Echo made it a point to fulfill the request. There wasn't anything wrong with getting a huge tip for going above and beyond, right? "Hold on," he replied, sliding one strap of his backpack off a shoulder so that he could unzip it, producing the fancy bottle with efficiency. "Oh good, it's still in one piece."

"Right, of course," Tony accepted, flapping his phone dismissively as though this was obviously a much more normal name than Daphne. Who was that? What app was he looking at? Didn't matter, the phone had to go away so he could take the bottle with an appreciative bow, then leave Echo there contemplating the fish tank as he swept around the counter into the chaotic kitchen.

"You'll have to excuse the mess," he said conversationally as he deposited the donuts on the counter and started working the bottle open, as though Echo had just walked into the normal untidiness of a well loved apartment, or maybe an ambitious renovation project that Tony had any control over, and not the aftermath of a foundation-rocking crisis, "I don't live here. Champagne?" It wasn't really a question. Tony was hosting this brunch and his guest would be well taken care of. The cork popped loudly in the small, cluttered space, followed by a splash hitting the grimy linoleum from the bottle's journey through the city, that Tony primly stepped around to search the cupboard for an intact cup.

When he finally returned, it was with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mug already fizzing to the brim that he handed off to Echo, not accepting any denial, so he could toast with a quick tink of the bottle against the porcelain before taking a drink directly from it. He still carried with him the cork between his fingers, which he promptly dropped into the water remaining in the fish tank. It sunk like a stone.

The bottle gone from his grasp, Echo shouldered and readjusted the backpack, his puzzled gaze bouncing back and forth from Tony wandering into what used to be a kitchen to the fish tank.

A few more questions came to mind in addition to the ones he already had, but no real answers were forthcoming. "Well, obviously," he replied in regards to the 'I don't live here' statement. What person in their right mind would? Unless they really wanted to be off the grid while remaining in the city at the same time?

Maybe it was better not to think too hard on it. He didn't even have a chance to decline the offer when he was handed the mug of champagne, frowning at it long after the toast was made. "What's being celebrated?" He then asked casually, watching the cork plug sink in an instant. That shouldn't happen. "Shouldn't this be done among peers? Or at least in a proper setting that doesn't look like the whole building needs to be torn down?"

The nature of the celebration was a work in progress, because Tony wasn't entirely sure where this was going himself, but he waved his free hand to try to craft a good enough sounding placeholder as he thoughtfully swallowed another mouthful of champagne. The rest of Echo's questioning was all very practical, if misguided, so Tony was nodding his appreciation when he finally produced, "New friends?"

He had to clear his throat, framing up the cork at the bottom of the tank between his thumb and forefinger before figuring these questions Echo was asking were bigger than this singular mystery and dropped his hand. "That's the problem with these alien invasion things, the clean up is always tricky and there's no good standard of what to look out for. A UFO crashes through a building, and you honestly kind of hope its Skrulls, because you know what they're bringing with them. You have a really bad day and it's not just the one UFO, but some metahuman has gone supernova and there's a new kind of magic brewing up at the Starbucks, and the teams qualified to do this clean up are stretched thin," he explained, then gestured to the cork again like this was the obvious fallout of that kind of problem.

That was just how Echo was – he wasn't very fond of going into things blind. And this particular situation? It fell within those unspoken parameters. Yet he rolled with it, subsequently nodding while taking a sip from the ninja turtle mug. "New friends." The uncertainty of the echo wasn't masked, but he seemed to accept this for the time being.

It was weird being in a room with someone who was practically a celebrity. Even weirder was the fact that said celebrity explained the gist of the broader picture. "That would explain why the last call got cut short," he muttered under a breath, looking back at where the cork still sat in the tank. "The mystery water and the sinking cork? We both know corks aren't supposed to sink."

Tony touched his nose, there they were, both scientists now and at the crux of their problem, on their own as the Stark Recovery efforts were focused uptown trying to contain a wild stormcloud, and Damage Control were still digging out a crystallized city block. One smashed apartment building didn't get priority, leaving Tony and whatever hands he could collect staring at the questionable fish tank.

"We could be optimistic," Tony proposed, raising his bottle again, it was a celebration after all, "and assume that it's just a strange anomaly, and once it's cleaned up and the place has been cleared out, that's the end of it, basically a chemical spill." He lowered the bottle slowly, pouting and clearly unconvinced, gaze sliding toward Echo for any signs of that optimism. "Just to put it out in the open, though, while we're talking about it, just a thought: aren't any fish in that tank," he added. Which might not have been immediately obvious, because despite being clearly disturbed, the tank did look set up to pleasantly house a few goldfish at least; gravel gathered down at the sloping corner and a little castle and treasure chest to play in. No movement disturbed the water, though, aside from the faint bubbling of the air escaping from the cork nestled against the castle now, breaking the smooth surface where no fish carcasses floated.

Of all the people he chose for this endeavor, it was the GrubDash deliveryman on short notice.

The most Tony could parse from Echo was doubt, but he was slowly opening up to the observations being made for the smaller hazard. His hand, however, automatically followed Stark's motion in raising the mug again. "You'd think we'd be better prepared if it was a chemical spill..."

Although it should have been obvious, it was still a good point to bring attention to. He leaned forward a bit to look for any fish-shaped objects in the water, only to find there really was nothing else in there aside from the cork sitting with the odds and ends of what made up a fish tank. "Strange." He then looked around the fish tank to see if there was anything on the ground among the debris.

While he kept his distance to let Echo make his own observations, Tony made a noise of agreement in his throat, tapping the mouth of the bottle against his lips anxiously as he considered the shimmering water. It was possible he did not have the proper experience to understand this situation fully and was assuming an oddity where there wasn't one, and the delivery man was just indulging him or the unsettled environment was encouraging some leaps of logic. "Let's, okay, listen: we're here, having a late breakfast, maybe we slept in, it's a hot day, we're still in our pyjamas and we're on the couch making our plans for the day," Tony proposed, spinning around to position them with a gesture on the dusty couch in this scenario. "Then a spaceship crashes into the building. Do the fire alarms go off in that scenario? I don't know. What do we do? We get our phones. We get the cat. Put the dog on a leash. Maybe even grab a lizard. Do we take the fish? We do love the fish, we bought those together for our third anniversary and they're very special, but it's not like we're putting them in a bag in an evacuation situation. Neither of us is stopping, hold on, honey, the walls might be coming down, but we can't just leave Mr. Bubbles."

The imagined scenario made the corner of Echo's mouth quirk as he followed Tony's lead, switching over to look at the couch. As ridiculous as it sounded, it helped deduce the matter in a way it would have unfolded when the problem was happening.

Yet he couldn't let the first thought go. "Third anniversary? Really?"

He then shook his head. "If it was also an expensive fish? Yes, we're taking it with us," came an answer with a straight face, arching a brow at the man. "But I doubt we'd have time to save the thing let alone try to get it into a bag in the first place. Meaning I'm sorry, dear, there's nothing else we can do and we have to go." Looking back at the part of the room that framed the tank, he added, "Mr. Bubbles didn't really have much of a chance, but he should still be here despite the fact the rest of us have been long gone."

"I was hoping we would be ready to move out of this place, maybe find somewhere with a yard, by our fifth," Tony replied like this was the obvious concern. It was reassuring in its own way that they were in some agreement about where the fish probably wasn't, so Tony finally closed in on the tank again as well to examine the floor like Echo had been doing, not sure what he expected to find. Ideally, a very normal body of a fish who had lept out of its tank in a fit of desperation, but all there was to see was dust, greenish puddles, and an air vent rusted with age. Tony's gaze lingered there as he straightened to take another drink of his champagne and organize his thoughts.

"It's possible," he said, "that we come back for the fish, after the incident." With that, he was left pointing at the tank and the sunken cork, and the water that must have been touched in this case by either the original occupants of the apartment, or some random, fish collecting weirdo, all of which Tony did not like the implications of. After a moment of considering them, he added, "I kind of prefer the idea that Mr. Bubbles walked away."

"These sure are some specifics," Echo accidentally blurts out while simultaneously wondering if finding a new space and moving out in less than six months was even realistic. It was probably better he didn't think too deeply about the factors going into the hypothetical, but it still managed to slip in. A notification on his phone chimed, giving him a break from the tank to fish the device out of his jacket pocket. "Seriously, Mr. Stark, I have other deliveries I have to get to– "

He barely read the 'spicy ramen' note when Tony carried on, bringing them back to the return trip to fetch Mr. Bubbles. His gaze followed where the man pointed, not liking the implication at all. "When you say 'walked' away," Echo began, "do you mean someone else got to him first? Or are you possibly saying Mr. Bubbles...evolved?"

Sure, it was a stretch, but. That couldn't be ruled out. Not here in This City.

That was the question they were here to answer, but Tony's fellow scientist didn't seem particularly convinced or focused. "You don't think so?" Tony pressed, but gently, taking the questioning alone as answer enough that this hypothesis was not workable. That would change Tony's focus to the less scientific exploration, and more detective work of figuring out who might have the fish in their possession, so maybe it was about time to relieve Echo and close the lab.

Tony raised a finger for Echo to wait while he took another long drink, wandering away as he did to deposit the bottle on the kitchen counter with his donuts. This freed his hands to fish out his wallet, and a thick stack of bills that he evidently didn't count before he was handing them over. "Illuminating discussion, Mr. Echo. Mr. Bubbles would be grateful for your service, I'm sure."

"I wish I could say yes," Echo sighed, "but we can't completely rule out any other outcomes. So Mr. Bubbles growing legs and stepping out on his own is still in play..."

His voice trailed off as one hand let go of the ninja turtle mug, automatically accepting the stack while his mind played catch-up. "What– "

Clearly this was a lot more than he made in a single day.

Echo worked his jaw, mouth opening, closing, then opening again. Much like what Mr. Bubbles would have done. "Mr. Stark?"

Tony's compulsion to correct the title was already half formed, tongue against his teeth before he was smiling wickedly and saying instead, "I liked 'dear' much better." Before Echo was under any impression that this was some kind of negotiation or he had to make humble overtures that would just make them both feel awkward, Tony was tucking his hands away in his pockets, not open for exchange, and backing a few steps away like he was wandering back for a donut. "I owe you, for the tips you could have been collecting, and for your help," he explained, letting Echo decide which of those he felt better about accepting. "But it looks like this project is changing directions, so I'm going to have to explore my options. I'll let you know if the evolution angle pans out."

The deliveryman's nose wrinkled, but he relented when Tony physically withdrew and explained as much, the hefty tip remaining a solid weight in his hand. "...Well. Thank you," Echo said with a slight laugh. "Glad I could help. And to be honest, I'm gonna expect some updates now."

He then raised his mug, drinking the rest of it down before setting it onto the counter. Maybe it was a mistake, but he did it. He saved himself any more trouble by waving a hand at Tony, turning on a heel to pick his way back out of the apartment unit.

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That Meddling Meddler

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